Results from the top of the ticket were satisfying, but this was surprising. Fenit Nirappil – The Washington Post:
Democrats made significant gains Tuesday in Virginia’s House of Delegates, snaring at least 15 seats in an upset that stunned members of both parties and arrived with national implications.
Unofficial returns showed Democrats unseating at least a dozen Republicans and flipping three seats that had been occupied by GOP incumbents who did not seek reelection. Four other races were so close that they qualify for a recount, and the outcome will determine control of the chamber. The results marked the most sweeping shift in control of the legislature since the Watergate era.
Important detail:
The election signaled a major shift in the gender of a body long dominated by men: Of the 15 seats Democrats flipped, all were held by men and 11 were won by women. Several of those women made history.
One became Virginia’s first openly transgender person to win elective office, unseating an opponent of LGBT rights. Another became the first open lesbian elected to the House of Delegates, another the first Asian American woman and two, both from diverse Prince William County, are set to be the first Latinas elected to the General Assembly.
“This is an unbelievable night,” said House Minority Leader David J. Toscano (D-Charlottesville) in an interview an hour after polls closed. “There were districts we didn’t think we had much of a shot in.”
Emphasis mine.
Women carried the vote beyond my expectations.
This is my hope for the 2018 mid-term Congressional elections: voters having had a two-year-long taste of “conservative populism,” they spit it out.
#Virginia #politics #US #GOP #populism
A Random Stroll 